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Putins Puppet

In retaliation for the United States placing more sanctions on that nation, Russia expelled 755 U.S. diplomats. Trump, who has talked tough to Mitch McConnell, Jeff Sessions, Kim Jong Un, Kristen Stewart, Broadway plays, and almost everyone in the world with a Twitter account, thanked Putin.

Yeah. He thanked Vladimir for expelling U.S. diplomats. Hey, he disrupted their lives and our relations just got even worse, but thanks, buddy.

Trump said Putin did us a favor, because it cuts payroll. Uh, first thing is: Vladimir Putin doesn’t fire employees of the United States government. He doesn’t control our payroll, does he? I mean, can he call Trump and tell him what do…aw, crap. He’s already done that by telling him to meet the Russian ambassador and foreign minister in the Oval Office, back when Trump gave them classified info.

The White House says Trump was joking about the “thank you.” OK, that would be believable except that’s all Trump had to say about it. Trump goes after everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY. He’s crapping on people in his own party, in his own cabinet. And yet, he can’t say one negative comment about Vladimir Putin.

You would think that at some point Trump would at least try to give the impression that Putin wasn’t holding a pee tape of him with Russian hookers.

Creative notes: Short blog right now because I want this published quick, I’m hungry, and I will draw again early in the morning. Also, trying something new here with the teaser images for shares on Facebook. We’ll see how it works.

I want to thank everyone who has donated in the past. Your support helps me continue creating cartoons and columns with a little less stress in my life. Between competing syndicates with much larger resources, timid editors, and Trump supporters who attempt to intimidate the editors who do publish anything that criticizes their idol, it’s a challenge to make a career out of this. So your support (if you can) is appreciated. Want to help me continue to create cartoons and keep doing what I’m doing (pissing off conservatives)? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through PayPal. Every $40 donation will receive a signed print. All donations will receive my eternal gratitude.

During the G20 Summit this week Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will hold a meeting one-on-one in Hamburg (Trump voters, that’s in Germany).

Putin will surely ask, or order Trump to give back the two Russian compounds in the U.S. that the Obama administration seized for Russia’s meddling in our election. I’m sure he’ll also bring up U.S. sanctions against Russia.

Trump is expected to talk about the increasing threat of North Korea…and Mika Brzezinski, fake news, his poll numbers, large crowds, how God stops the rain for him, and that he won Michigan. He is not expected to bring up the subject of Russia’s interference in our election, as he believes that’s a hoax (but three million people voting illegally is a real thing).

Putin is a master manipulator. He brought large dogs to a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel because she’s afraid of dogs. To intimidate Trump, Putin will probably bring stairs and Mexicans. After George W. Bush met Putin he said that he looked in his eyes and “saw his soul.”

Manipulating Trump should be easy for Putin. Putin studies people and prepares for meetings. Trump does not. Trump has made it clear that he craves adulation. The Saudis heaped it on him in massive quantities in the form of giant billboards, glowing orbs, and sword dances. He allowed the President of China to give him a history lesson on China and Korea…which took ten minutes and two pieces of chocolate cake.

When Putin asked Trump to meet with the Russian ambassador, Trump obediently hosted the guy in the Oval Office and revealed classified information to him.

Trump’s tweets provide valuable insights into the fragile mind and ego of the man-baby president. He’s revealed he’s more focused on his personal slights than policy. That he doesn’t understand policy. He’s barely literate. He doesn’t respect the rule of the law, the Constitution, his political allies, our foreign allies, and that he disrespects his own office. One vulnerability Putin has surely noticed is that Trump lies, and loves to hear confirmation bias. Putin will find ways to feed that to his benefit.

Putin can disparage our previous president and compare Trump favorably. That will probably get him not only the seized Russian compounds in New York and Maryland but also the entire states of New York and Maryland.

Putin has probably taken note Trump has a tendency to make up policy as he goes along. He ditched affirming our defense of NATO allies, despite it being written into his speech. He celebrated on the White House lawn the House’s repeal and replacement of Obamacare, only to turn around later and say it was too “mean.” He’s tweeted a desire to work with China and today tweeted that he’s basically giving up on working with China.

It will be interesting to see how Trump interacts and comments on Putin compared to how he treats our allies during this summit. Trump has yet to say anything negative about Putin…ever. He loves the guy so much that he’s said multiple times how they’ve met and had a good relationship, though the meeting this week will be their first.

I hope for his and our nation’s sake, that Trump practices safe meetings.

It’s really hard being a one-man syndicate when editors (who receive death threats from Trump supporters) are afraid of cartoons with opinions, while I’m also competing against other syndicates with dozens of cartoonists (who offer lots of right-wing cartoons and the kind without any opinions). So your support (if you can) is appreciated. Want to help me continue to create cartoons and keep doing what I’m doing (pissing off conservatives)? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through PayPal. Every $50 donation will receive a signed print. All donations will receive my eternal gratitude.

That was an often repeated question during the Watergate crisis. With the resignation of national security adviser Michael Flynn, that is one of many questions being asked, except by most Republicans.

Flynn talked to the Russian ambassador during the transition. He claimed he never talked about foreign policy or sanctions being placed upon Russia by the Obama administration. Vice President Mike Pence went on the airwaves to repeat that claim. It was a lie.

Flynn changed his story from did not to I don’t know. As it turns out he not only talked to Russia during the transition, he talked to government officials during the campaign. Other members of Trump’s campaign did the same. One of the many questions is “who were those people?”

Two weeks ago then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates told the White House what Flynn did, and that he was a threat to be blackmailed by Russia. Donald Trump fired her for refusing to defend his Muslim ban. He fired one person for doing her job and kept the guy on staff who committed treason and was posing a threat, not just to the administration, but to the nation.

After The Washington Post reported the story that the FBI and the Justice Department were on to Flynn, and had questioned him, Trump claimed he didn’t know the report even existed. His claim was about 16 hours after the Post story was published. It’s unclear if he was talking about the Post story or the report from the FBI. I think he was lying about both. It’s weird the guy believes in things that doesn’t exist but denies stuff that’s actually happening.

Kellyanne Conway went on TV Monday to say Michael Flynn had Trump’s confidence. A few hours later Flynn resigned. Not only has Kellyanne lost all confidence with the press, but apparently also with the White House. She’s not even in the loop anymore but she can probably tell you how much Ivanka Trump’s bangles cost.

Flynn resigned and the reasoning is that he lost Trump’s confidence. When did he lose the confidence? Trump knew he lied weeks ago. Trump didn’t fire, or make him resign, until The Washington Post reported on his conversations with Russia. The Trump administration doesn’t have a problem with him undermining government policy. Their “official” problem is that he lied to Mike Pence. Reportedly Trump knew weeks ago that he lied and didn’t inform Pence that he had defended a lie. There’s a whole bunch of people Pence should be pissed with if that sort of stuff is important to him.

The bigger questions here concern Trump himself, his ties to Russia, and whether or not his team coordinated with Putin’s government to sabotage the Clinton campaign.

Trump claimed he loved Wikileaks. He asked Putin to hack and release information on Clinton. The man is incapable of criticizing Putin and even defends him and puts him on an equal level with the U.S. government. To distract for Russia’s involvement in our election Trump has created the lie of massive voter fraud (even though he won).

Trump’s biggest complaint publicly is that there were leaks about Flynn’s chit chat with the Russians. Trump, the man who loves Wikileaks and asks foreign governments to release private information.

Is it believable that the incoming national security adviser talked to Russia about sanctions without the president elect’s knowledge? Is it believable they talked during the campaign without Trump in on it, or even without his direction?

Two Republicans want this investigated. They’re Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Others, like Jason Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, says the problem will work itself out. Others in Congress say if it’s investigated, then it should be private, not held publicly multiple times like all those Benghazi investigations.

Donald Trump told us he’d hire the best for his administration. General Michael Flynn was not the best. He was incapable of doing his job. Most career military men don’t become partisans. Flynn promoted the lie about Clinton being involved in a child-sex-slave scheme at a pizza parlor. Flynn led “lock her up” chants at the GOP convention and said he’d be in prison if he did a tenth of what Hillary Clinton had done.

Fortunately for Flynn, he did a lot more than a tenth so maybe he won’t go to prison for that.

Most national security advisers last for only two years. Flynn only lasted 21 days. Who’s next to go from the Trump administration? How long will the Trump presidency last? This is an administration of dishonesty, lies, ineptness, clumsiness, stupidity, and chaos.

Creative notes: Having heterosexuals in bed together as a metaphor for being in cahoots might be one of those cliches I should retire, like things going over cliffs, sinking ships, mazes, air balloons, Pinocchios, and Santa’s lap. But I thought it might be a twist throwing in all the individuals who have ties to Russia. Plus, I had a lot of fun with all the creepy details. What can I say? I’m a very disturbed person.

I enjoyed all these caricatures but I especially enjoyed drawing Flynn. I hope there are multiple investigations so I can keep drawing the guy.

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Donald Trump didn’t tweet about the terrorist Trump supporter who killed several Muslims in Quebec City. But Nordstrom drops his daughter’s line of crap and that motivates him to tweet.

Last weekend during an interview on Fox News Bill O’Reilly made the comment that Vladimir Putin is a killer. Trump replied “You got a lot of killers. “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

Ugh.

No. America isn’t so innocent. America has a legacy of slavery, interning Japanese-American citizens in World War II, voter suppression, and engineering coups in other nations. But we don’t have presidents killing critics, journalists, or imprisoning girl bands. At least not yet.

Our president isn’t just equating our nation with Russia and their president who was an agent for the KGB, he’s elevating him. Remember when Republicans perpetuated the myth of Obama’s apology tour for America? The majority of those Republicans are silent as Trump slimes our nation.

It’s amazing the depths Trump will go in defending Vladimir Putin. Today the administration failed to answer questions about Russia’s largest delivery to date of missiles to Syria. But judges and Nordstrom needed to be taken down a peg or two.

Trump first attacked an appeals court for listening to arguments on his travel ban. After that outrage he took to his personal, and official presidential twitter accounts, to attack Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka’s line of clothing and jewelry, and whatever the hell else she puts her names on.

The Trump administration is also making it easier for animal breeders to abuse dogs, cats, horses, etc., by removing the USDA’s database on animal welfare records. Did Eric Trump just buy a Schnauzer farm?

Trump promised us that he wasn’t going to worry about his businesses while he was president. It would all be in a “blind” trust run by his sons. He wouldn’t even know what’s going on in that area. He’d just focus on his presidential duties…and no. The conflicts continue. Ignore his business? He can’t ignore his daughter’s. The lies continue.

Nordstrom most likely dropped Ivanka’s stuff because it doesn’t sell. Trump claims they’re attacking her personally and destroying her name because they don’t like his policies. That does sound a lot better than “nobody wants your crap.”

You know that crap Ivanka sells? It’s products that are NOT made in the United States for a corporation that doesn’t have a maternity leave policy. Maybe those are policies consumers have issues with.

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One cool thing about being a political cartoonist and not having a dog in the Super Bowl is that you root for an outcome that’ll give you a good cartoon idea.

I’m a New Orleans Saints fan so that means I don’t like the Atlanta Falcons. Most people hate the New England Patriots and with the coach, quarterback, and owner supporting Donald Trump that pretty much makes me want to see them lose. All this meant I really didn’t care who won. So I had a cartoon idea before the game started.

Then Atlanta was blowing them out so I got another idea. Then Lady Gaga rocked halftime and it kinda gave me a new idea I wasn’t in love with…and then the third quarter started and New England came back and won the game in overtime which killed all my ideas. I had to start from scratch and it was after 11:00 PM. That sucks but not unusual for me.

Then I thought how Trump cheats, the Patriots cheat, Putin cheats. I’ll just throw them all in together. It’s especially interesting after Trump gave another stupid defense of his love for Vladimir.

Someday I’m going to have a normal schedule again like a normal cartoonist, if there’s such a thing as a “normal” cartoonist.

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This is the last cartoon I’ll ever draw on Barack Obama while he’s still president. It’s kinda sad. It’s also frightening. Blood curdling terrifying even.

I intended to draw something reflective of his legacy but I wasn’t really into it. Once again I went with making an attempt at humor, and hopefully to spotlight what’s blood curdling terrifying. At least one of the aspects that’s scary of a Donald Trump presidency. There’s so many.

I still haven’t really overcome the shock that Donald Trump is going to be president. It’s not that it’s as disappointing or surreal as much as it’s just really stupid. American voters aren’t any better at hiring leaders than the San Francisco 49ers.

We’re watching a man leave the Oval Office who at his very worst, is extremely reasonable, patient, competent, intelligent, and empathetic. He’s a college professor. Enter the reality television guy who insults people on Twitter, grabs vaginas and brags about it, scams poor people with a fake university, and uses money intended for charity to purchase paintings of himself.

On top of all that Donald Trump is entering the White House with the lowest approval and confidence ratings of any incoming president, and with several investigations into his dealings with Russia. When does Trump lift the sanctions on Russia? Friday afternoon or will he bask in compliments throughout the weekend and wait to do it at 3:00 AM Monday morning? Perhaps he’ll find that phone that enables the president to text the entire nation (which Bush and Obama declined to ever use) and let us know while also pitching a fit over what Alec Baldwin does Saturday night.

Donald Trump is not prepared to be president. He was surprised he had to hire a staff for the West Wing. He fired the guy leading his transition team and started from scratch after the election. His cabinet of Billionaires hasn’t been appointed yet. His Security Council hasn’t even been selected. Some of the people he has hired are racists, white nationalists and Kellyanne Conway. We’re in deep trouble.

President Obama had a very successful presidency and leaves office with higher approval ratings than Clinton and both Bush presidencies. History will be kind to him and I’m going to start missing him around 12:01 PM Friday.

One historic aspect of Obama’s presidency is that he was successful and the two presidents that sandwich his tenure were both failures. The second failure is really going to make us long for the first one.

Good bye, President Obama and thank you for your service. You told us “yes we can.” We did and then we elected an idiot. You deserve a long break and time off from the stress of the office that added so much gray to your hair and lines to your face. I do hope Obama speaks out from time to time as we’re going to need a voice of reason through our upcoming nightmare.

And Putin? He may not literally be sitting in the Oval Office at the Resolute desk, but his puppet will be.

As for Donald Trump, I hope he likes political cartoons. I’m going to be drawing a lot of them.

Did you like this cartoon? Want to help a cartoonist make a living? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through Paypal. I need to buy pens, paper, sandwiches, etc.. The starving cartoonist appreciates it. If you’ve donated in the past, THANK YOU!!!

The more that the Russian hacking story develops the angrier I get. I’m angry that the Russians did this. I’m angry they succeeded. I’m angry that we have a president-elect who’s becoming more and more complicit with the Russians. I’m angry that his supporters allowed themselves to be played by the Russians and continue to put partisanship over patriotism.

The directors of national intelligence, the National Security Agency, The FBI, and the CIA together sat Mr. Trump down to lay out the evidence. First they had to distract him from Tweeting about the ratings of The Apprentice now that Arnold Schwarzenegger is the new host. After they were able to meet with Trump and do their job they told Trump that Vladimir Putin ordered the hacking. Putin wanted Trump to win. They sought to denigrate Hillary Clinton. They created a broad campaign that included covert operations, including cyberactivities and “trolling” on the internet of people who were viewed as opponents of Russia’s effort. They created a website to expose the emails. When that website didn’t catch on they released the information to Wikileaks. After Trump won the Russians celebrated. Let’s not forget that Trump himself asked the Russians to disrupt the Clinton campaign and to leak information from hacking.

Trump’s first response to all this was to protect his ego and tweet that the Russians didn’t affect the outcome. That was the most important detail to Trump. He’s not acknowledging the Russians did the hacking but this is the farthest he’s gone as he didn’t continue his campaign that they weren’t involved and that the hackers could be the Chinese or New Jersey fat guys. Trump mostly blamed the DNC for having such lousy security to allow themselves to be hacked (which is like blaming a rape victim) and ignored the fact that the RNC was hacked also. The Russians just didn’t release those emails.

Trump tweeted Saturday morning about how much he’ll be respected by Russia and that only “stupid” people don’t want a great relationship with the nation. Of course Trump will have a great relationship with Russia. Puppets never argue with their masters unless it’s part of the show. Seeing that Russia sought to destroy the Democrats’ campaign, the candidate Vladimir respected was Hillary Clinton.

One detail that really makes me angry is that our future president won’t admit information he doesn’t agree with, or insults him personally. Four directors gave him the facts but for Trump and his supporters they don’t have the clout or credibility as Vladimir Putin, Julian Assange, or the National Enquirer.

As a journalist who’s worked for newspapers for over 25 years it deeply disturbs me that Trump has a love for the National Enquirer and lacks the intelligence and critical thinking to recognize false information. I would like to think the leader of the free world is intelligent enough to know the difference between real and fake news. The National Enquirer doesn’t just print fake news. They print outlandish and unbelievable fake news. Unbelievable to a rational and reasonable person at least which Trump and his supporters are not.

Republicans need to recognize the warning signs now. Trump isn’t even pushing Republicanism anymore. This is Trumpism. This is idol worship for an empty idol. Devoid of ideas, intellect, and incapable of critical thinking (probably because he doesn’t actually read). People incapable of thinking critically are not problem solvers. They’re tweeters. His first response to any problem is to hurl childish insults to tell us how great he is.

Donald Trump has already broken three of his big campaign promises and he’s not even president yet. There will be no locking her up, no “repealing and replacing,” and no border wall paid for my Mexico (you’re going to pay for it. People who hated raising the debt ceiling should really love that). First, you should have known he was lying before the election. That was easy to spot but then again, intelligent people know a fake news story when they see it. Second, if Trump’s breaking promises now, thus everything he sold you is not actually important to him, what’s he going to break next? We’re still waiting on his taxes. How about those press conferences he keeps announcing?

Trump played you as much as Putin has played you. Except Putin is actually smart. You allowed yourself to be played by a narcissistic moron with the maturity of an angry toddler in a crappy diaper. Good job. When I was a kid I fell for it when my grandfather told me to pull his finger. I never pulled the finger twice. You’re still pulling Trump’s finger.

Trump’s surrogates on news shows can’t even allow a question to finish before they start not answering it. Their first response is to talk about how bad of a campaign Hillary Clinton ran. Putin has made the same point. Trump has made the same point. Your talking points are coming from Moscow. Alexey Pushkov, a Russian senator, said that Republicans trust Putin more than they trust Democrats. He’s right. There’s something very wrong with that.

I wasn’t real crazy about drawing a puppet cartoon as it’s been done, but hopefully not in this context. Trump refuses to acknowledge there’s a Russian hand up his ass. And if you’re spreading fake news, have spread it, continue to deny the Russians hacked our election, or you even voted for Trump, you’re not noticing the hand up your ass either.

Did you like this cartoon? Want to help a cartoonist make a living? Look to the right of this page and make a donation through Paypal. I need to buy pens, paper, sandwiches, etc.. The starving cartoonist appreciates it. If you’ve donated in the past, THANK YOU!!!